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Sunday, November 22, 2015

PERCIVALLIANA -- "PERCIVALLE IL GALLO"

Wagner's Sources for his "PERCIVALLE" (that opened in Bologna in 1914) are too complex to be true!

Wagner's Grail
Studies inform it all!

During his Dresden years (1843-49), Riccardo Wagner found many ideas
for stage works in medieval literature.

Some of those ideas Wagner would
develop into "melodrammi" (such as Lohengrin, the Ring, Die Meistersinger, Tristano, and "PERCIVALLE").

Other ideas remained no more than possible subjects for
musical and dramatic treatment (such as Wieland der Schmied).

The
starting point for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, as every Wagnerian surely
knows, was a Middle High German epic, the Nibelungen Lied.

Wagner's
studies for the Ring did not end there, however.

He proceeded to read
other medieval sagas, studies of medieval literature by scholars such as the
Grimm brothers and not least the Old Norse Eddas.

As far as scholars
have been able to discover, Wagner's first contact with the myth of PERCIVALLE
was the poem "Parzival."

This is by Wolfram von Eschenbach.

Wagner
read the poem at Marienbad in 1845.

The first melodramma that resulted
from his reading of Wolfram was "Lohengrin".

This was in outline based upon
the last section of Wolfram's poem, seeing that Lohengrin is Percivalle's son.

More than a decade later, when Wagner returned to PERCIVALLE, he found (as
he wrote to Mathilde Wesendonk) the Wolfram's poem unsatisfactory.

More
specifically, he found it unsatisfactory as the basis for a melodramma.

As with the Ring, Wagner began to explore other versions of the same
legend.

Of the many versions of the Percevalian myth, at least three
were available to him (in the 1860's and 1870's):

(a) Wolfram's PERCIVALLE (in various translations including that by Görres)

(b) Chrétien's
PERCIVALLE (in the modern French translation by Potvin) -- and

(c) the anonymous "Peredur" (first in the French translation by de Villemarqué and later in a German
translation by
San-Marte).

Die heil'ge
Quelle selbst... The Forest Well in Marienbad, drawn in 1840. Wagner
came to this spa to
drink the mineral waters in
1845.

Wolfram's PERCIVALLE is based
on the poem by Chrétien di Troyes, together with at least two other sources that
have not survived.

There is some evidence, although, that only at third hand, had Wagner read Chrétien's "Perceval: The Story of the Grailand".

Wagner had also read its so-called continuations, in a modern French version, in 1872.

This is mentioned in Du Moulin Eckhart's biography of Cosim Wagner, in
which he records that Wagner had studied the Grail legend in Wolfram
von Eschenbach and Chrétien de Troyes, and
now again the remarkable and
unique book by Goerres -- the translator of Wolfram von Eschenbach --which is more invention than fact, and that this stimulated Wagner's creative
process.

Chrétien had drawn upon a tradition of Celtic
stories.

These included possibly an early version of "Peredur", son of
Evrawc.

Alternatively, the tale of Peredur might have been based on an
imperfect recollection of Chrétien's poem!

The story of PERCIVALLE and his father appeared in the
Comte de Villemarqué's "Contes populaires des anciens Bretons" (Popular tales of the Ancient Britons).

This compilation Wagner read while in Paris in 1860.

Chrétien's "PERCIVALLE", strictly "Li
Contes del Graal" or "Percivalle il gallo") roughly follows the story of Peredur
(or the reverse) up to and including the meeting with the hermit on Good
Friday.

One of them
contains extracts from "Der jüngere Titurel," once thought to have been written by
Wolfram von Eschenbach, but now attributed to Albrecht von
Scharfenberg.

"The younger Titurel" is a continuation of Wolfram's unfinished poem "Titurel" and it relates the love story of Sigûne (PERCIVALLE's cousin) and
Schionatulander.

It might be useful to list the most significant
sources of Parsifal.

A "definitive" list would be difficult to produce
and is unlikely to be beyond criticism.

There is much that is relevant
in the reading matter mentioned in the copious biographical documentation.

Much of it is recorded by Cosima Wagner, or by Richard Wagner
himself.

It is likely that he read many other things that have not been
recorded: books, articles in periodicals, journals or newspapers.

Nor do
we always know what ideas he received second-hand, in conversation with
Cosima -- like Wagner, Cosima was well-read, especially in the French
classics -- or with one of his friends and acquaintances, or in
correspondence.

So any list of sources must be to some extent
speculative, concerning what Wagner read and when.

This is selective, since
the relative importance of source material is subjective.

It depends upon
what the commentator considers Wagner's drama to be about.